


you keep the showers away

by allonsysouffle



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: (except not really. pre-FAHC. three boys against the world kinda deal.), Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Fake AH Crew, M/M, anyway where?? are the b-team in fahc fics. where is the stream team ot3 i deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 05:05:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6597868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsysouffle/pseuds/allonsysouffle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“I think I love him.”</p>
  <p>
“I know.” And then, “so do I.”</p>
  <p>
Trevor pauses, letting the sunlight dapple the skin of his arm. Sirens wail through the thin walls.</p>
  <p>
“Well,” he says, taking Matt’s hand in his own, “we’re fucked.”</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	you keep the showers away

**Author's Note:**

> hi yes hello. i just want more trerematt in the world okay. okay

Three boys collide in a youth shelter in Los Santos.

A bottle of spray paint rattles in the night.

They tag a wall with a crudely-painted dick. 

(Baby steps, okay?)

* * *

 

It's sunrise in Los Santos and the whole city is asleep except for them, these boys in green and khaki and cream, these boys in embroidered baseball caps and bomber jackets stuck with pins and patches and imitation Yeezys and skinny jeans. These boys in the firefight, in the parking lot.

Jeremy wraps his knuckles. Trevor slicks back his hair. Matt puts his hood up.

They deal in acts of quiet rebellion- they deal in graffiti and petty damage, convenience store robberies and spraying non-threatening messages across buildings in neon yellow. In tiny plastic baggies, and soft smiles, and knives down their sleeves.

They make a living. Ramshackle and hapless but it’s a living nonetheless. Trevor works at the same corner store he robs twice a week, and Matt does part-time in IT, and Jeremy disappears for hours on ends and comes back bloody and beaten but clutching green bills in his fists. No one asks questions. No one wants to know.

They paint the walls of Matt’s apartment the colour of tiger-lilies and try to ignore the dirt in the water. They live off hot cheetos and mint limeade and the sheer dumb freedom of being eighteen in a big city. In a big world.

And sure, they look good in the dark but they look better with the stars out.

* * *

 

So they’re running through alleyways in Murietta Heights, and it’s late night in Los Santos and Trevor’s got his fist in the sky, screaming “WE ARE FUCKING INVINCIBLE” to no one and everyone and Matt feels a dangerous stirring in his stomach. The boys’ wide smiles are wolfish and hungry and harsh- bright- terrifying. He tries to smile back but all he can think about is wax wings and clockwork and-

He bites his nails and watches wide-eyed. Trevor climbs up the bottom of a bridge by the support beams to spray a smiley face on the bottom of it, throwing his head back in a laugh. 

The wind sighs something deep. 

 

So they’re sitting on a bench halfway up Mount Chiliad and Jeremy’s soft pink in the sunset, and it’s early evening in Los Santos and all Matt can think about is that documentary he saw once about how bubblegum is manufactured. How his heart is turning to elastic.

_Pull, snap. Pull._

He can never tell them, he decides. Trevor comes back from the car with a box of fireworks and a sparkling grin. Matt and Jeremy lock eyes under the fire in the sky, lighting their faces in blue and red and _youth_. And they’re just kids, Matt reasons. Kids on the wrong side of adolescence. 

Trevor reaches his hands out to nobody. In his head, he’s grasping at two boys’ palms.

 

It’s midday in Los Santos and they need a break from the monotony and cacophony of city life, so they traipse to the beach to watch the June clouds. That one’s a rabbit. That one’s a rose. That one’s an AK-47.

Jeremy stays in the shade and watches the other two from below an umbrella. Mosquitos kiss his skin in perfect pink circles and he tastes blood on the side of his mouth where he’s been scraping it with his teeth. The boys point and laugh and shimmer in the bright blue of the day, that consuming humidity, that grand West Coast mirage. 

His sun doesn’t hang in the sky, it’s lying on the ground staring up.

 

* * *

 

Trevor and Jeremy sit on a rooftop with their legs dangling off the edge into the murky blackness of an alleyway. Matt has gone to bed. The whole damn city is lulled.

“Hey,” whispers Trevor.

“Hey?”

“You ever wonder why we’re-”

“Shut up.”

They laugh. It’s very quiet. All they can hear from the roof is the endless brimming noise of the city, something they’ve both learned to tune out by now. No stars shine through the dense and heaving pollution but the planes do, blinking red-white-red-blue on predetermined paths across the airspace.

Trevor lifts his arm and follows a jet with his fingertip. “Where do you think that one’s going?”

“East?” says Jeremy immediately. He knows that much.

Trevor shakes his head. “No, but _where?_ ”

“You suck, man.”

“Boston,” Trevor whispers. His arm falls back into his lap. “It’s going to Boston. Boston, then back again.”

Jeremy’s heart drops to his toes. He shakes his head, getting up. “Nah. Nah, Trev, not Boston, no, it’s- it’s. It’s just a plane. We don’t know where-”

“Whoa, whoa, what’s up with Boston?” Trevor questions, whip-fast, back on his feet. “What happened in Boston?”

“Nothing-”

“ _Jerem_.”

“FUCK YOU, THAT’S WHAT,” Jeremy blurts out, one out in front of him, the other hovering just above the pocket knife sheathed in his back pocket. “Fuck- just, don’t- don’t ask me about Boston,” he heaves. “Not ever. I just-” 

Trevor moves to touch him, a reaching hand, following his path across the roof. The wind bites into their skin with a vengeance. His pointer finger barely skims the hair on Jeremy’s arm before it’s shaken off. 

“What’s going on?” Trevor yells. The gale rises and buffets their hair. “You don’t- you don’t say anything! You _never_ say anything, you talk and you talk and I don’t know the first thing about you! Where did you even come from? You get home at four in the fucking morning covered in bruises, bleeding out of everywhere, you have _nightmares_ , don’t give me that look, I’ve seen you having them- _Jeremy_ ,” he begs, voice steely and strangely calm, “get your hand away from the knife.”

_Click_. The blade unsheathes and dances between calloused fingers. Jeremy is crouched, eyes mad and desperate like a caged animal. 

“Please don’t,” he rasps. “ _Please_.” 

He turns, and clatters down the fire escape.

Trevor looks to the sky.

The plane disappears behind Mount Chiliad.

 

* * *

 

A fly is drowning in Jeremy’s sink. Its wings flutter, heavy under the weight of the water, and it buzzes in a stutter.

He wraps his knuckles in stained yellow canvas and doesn’t look at the hole in the living room wall.

* * *

 

Trevor sleeps on Matt’s couch and doesn’t tell him what happened. Light streams through the open window- delicate, dancing, yellow.

Neither of them know where Jeremy is and the terror, the unknowing, builds the pressure in the apartment until neither of them can take it.

“Fuck him,” says Matt, sitting cross-legged on the rug in the living room. It’s midday and he can’t stand the waiting any longer. “I… ugh.” He shakes his head as if he is dispelling a dark thought. “Fuck it, right?”

Trevor hugs his knees to his chest. “Yeah,” he rasps. “Yeah, it’s pointless.” And then, “I think I love him.”

“I know.” And then, “so do I.”

Trevor pauses, letting the sunlight dapple the skin of his arm. Sirens wail through the thin walls.

“Well,” he says, taking Matt’s hand in his own, “we’re fucked.”

 

* * *

“Fuck,” Jeremy heaves, feeling his gum split, tasting the rust spilling down his chin. He spits to his side and it stains the ground red. His back meets wire mesh.

The crowd is jeering and laughing and cursing, money meeting hands meeting pockets meeting hands and forcing surrenders past teeth.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._ He can’t tell if the pounding is his heart or his headache. His eyes flit up to scan his opponent again. Tall, broad, bigger in every sense of the word, he’s goddamn thunderous, and Jeremy’s will very nearly breaks in two.

He thrusts himself forward with a roar and goes in with his fists, to the face, to the neck, to the funny bone. He has learnt the human body and it is instinct, now, quickly, now, one hit after the other after the other after the-

The man laughs and knees him in the stomach. The dim green-toned light glares at him from above, and Jeremy hits the ground with a cry. The makeshift ring rattles underneath his body.

A buzzer sounds. He moves to get up, but a boot crashes towards his face.

The world is white.

Stars in his eyes.

 

“Where do you think that one’s going?” 

“East?”

“No, but _where?_ ”

 

* * *

 

A bird calls out _good morning_ and Jeremy wakes with a start. It’s so bright in the room he can’t even see but for the sunlight, but he knows he is lying spread-eagle on an uncomfortable bed. He remembers passing out. He doesn’t remember how he got here.

Fingers brush the stubble on his chin. He cries out, not just in surprise- the skin is new and far too soft and red and red and-

His vision clears. 

“Hey there, tiger,” Trevor murmurs, soft, yellow. Matt’s apartment is washed in pale light and a cool breeze wipes the sweat from his brow. Trevor is seated beside him with a book in his hand, but it looks as if he stopped reading on the second page based upon the obvious fold in the paper.

“Trev- what-”

Trevor purses his lips and pulls his hand back to his lap. “Matt’s out getting fresh bandages. We found you last night at, like, three. Some kid from the Community called us up to tell us where you were, thank god for that. You were half-dead.”

“Sorry?”

“Apology accepted,” Trevor quips. “Nothing broken, or we would’ve had to get Denecour involved. Just scraped up, a pretty sick concussion.”

Jeremy puts a finger to his temple and winces. “Ugh. Shit, fuckin’- the guy was twice the size of me.”

Trevor sighs. “Cage fighting. Fucking _cage fighting._ I should’ve known you were down there, man. It- it was obvious. Never clicked for some reason.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Stop,” Trevor laughs, he goddamn _laughs_. His eyes narrow. “Stop apologizing. You did what you did.” His gaze softens, dark and clouded. “Please don’t go back there, Jerem.”

He swallows, hard. His head pounds, a bass drum blood clot, and the room sort of spins around in a blur of ochre and sienna. The drumming in his head only ever grows louder. His knuckles itch, scabbed over, and all he wants to do is open the wounds back up again.

But he owes it to his boys, he supposes. He owes it to his crew.

The door creaks open, then, and in stumbles Matt.

“Is he awake?” he pants, eyes crinkled at the edges. Eyes sodden with something that really just looks like _pain_. He locks eyes with Jeremy and almost drops the canvas bandages he’s clutching.

“Hey,” says Jeremy with a tiny wave. Matt approaches warily, bottom lip well-bitten.

He exhales. Runs his finger through shaggy hair. “Thought you were dead for sure, 6401.”

“Been through worse, Axial.”

“Shitty code names,” Matt remarks casually, sitting down across from the two of them on the sofa. “Both of them.”

Jeremy laughs. “At least it’s not _Zed Direction_.”

“Hey!”

“C’mon, Trev, did you really think that was intimidating, you fucking loser?”

* * *

 

It’s not a love story so much as a goddamn waiting game.

Jeremy heals, slowly. The apartment sits and counts clock-ticks in dense silence. Traffic roars outside.

Trevor and Matt have come to an unspoken agreement- they’d be happy together, but Jeremy’s the glue. It’s the three of them or nothing.

Three of them against the whole damn world, and it’s fruitless. They don’t touch the spray paint for a while. They stop robbing places. They can’t afford another fuckup. And tensions only rise. Jeremy doesn’t understand. He thinks they’re still mad at him for the fights. So he goes along with it all, humours them, he tries his goddamn best to live a normal life, for a while.

Until one day Matt and Trevor clasp each other’s hands absentmindedly while they’re sitting in an empty skate park at three in the morning and Jeremy drops his penny board with a clatter.

“Um.” That’s all he says, whispered, a little shaky. “Uh. Guys?” His voice goes to a squeak.

Matt looks up, then looks at his hand, then screws his eyes shut. “Shit. Jerem, we were gonna tell you-“

“Tell me what?” Jeremy just looks bewildered. “Are you guys…”

Trevor sighs. “Look, man, we’re just- I- yeah,” he admits to the ground. “Sorta. Maybe.”

Jeremy shakes his head, like he’s not seeing straight, like he’s coming to a realization. “Well. Fuck.”

The skate park is silent for about thirty seconds, but for Jeremy’s board ever-so-slowly rolling away.

Matt can’t exactly help himself. His head is filled with images of bubblegum and tiger lilies, and nothing is stopping him, and what else can he even say? How else can he phrase it?

Deep night in Los Santos.

Three in the morning in Los Santos.

An airplane roars above them.

“We… I mean. Fuck, man,” Matt starts, rambling, shaking through it, “it’s not like that. I mean. Fuck. _Shit_ \- okay, um- we, also, like- I mean, _like_ -like-”

Trevor rolls his eyes, pushes himself off the bench and grabs Jeremy by the shoulders. By the waist. By the chin, and they’re kissing now and it’s spinning, it’s desperate, it’s rose and yellow and sunlight.

“ _You too_ ,” Trevor whispers into his ear.

Momentarily, Jeremy forgets about Boston.

He breaks away with a start and a stutter. “I- no, no, wait- no, guys, seriously, what the _fuck?_ ” But he says it with a stupid grin and a half-laugh and a blush like bubblegum. Matt and Trevor shoot each other alarmed looks.

“Sorry?” says Trevor, running his fingers across the back of his neck. “Uh. Whoops. Maybe we shouldn’t have done it so soon, Matt.”

Jeremy drops his arms to his sides with a groan. “You guys are fucking idiots.” He holds out his palms. “I liked it. I mean, I like _you_ , I mean… Fuck. Assholes, how long?”  
“Few weeks,” Trevor says, just as Matt blurts out “from the first time I saw you guys.”

Jeremy just nods. “Sounds about right.” He holds out both his hands. The boys- his boys- take him palms in their own and stand there, in the middle of that abandoned skate park in the dim orange light of the streetlamps, there, in the middle of Los Santos after dark, there, in the heartache party and the carnival of modern goddamn romance, the web of gangs and lies and that rickety bridge to finding something they can finally, finally call their own.

The sun rises over three boys in Los Santos with their heads turned towards the sky.

Looking westward.


End file.
